


X Marks the Cop

by Orokiah



Category: Vexed (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, References to Series One, Surprise Cameo, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8870260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orokiah/pseuds/Orokiah
Summary: “Let's be honest,” Jack says. “Getting locked in a supermarket overnight is every woman's number one sexual fantasy.”“You don't know many women, do you,” says George.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elennare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elennare/gifts).



> Set between episodes three and four of series two.

“Have you got a Sting card?” the girl on the till asks, scanning Jack's meal deal and tossing it at him like a vengeful ex.

“I think it's time for your break, love.”

George winces. Item number two on her Jack Armstrong chargesheet— _can't tell the difference between charm and_ _patronising_ _bullshit—_ gets yet another tick. He stares from the girl to George and back again, waiting for the penny to drop.

“Bzzz,” he prompts. “Bzzzzzzzz...?”

The girl thrusts a form across the counter before he can start flapping his arms. She squints around Jack's shoulder, and discovers the loyalty card formerly known as Honeybee has had a facelift. It's now black and red, and in a cunning play on the name, gives half as many points as it used to.

“This is daylight robbery,” Jack complains, having also scanned the small print. George suspects it's a skill gained from speed-reading Tony's menu, not actual police work. He raises his voice as the sentence goes on, oblivious to basic psychology and every training manual ever. Tone always gives you more authority than volume. _Everyone_ knows that, George reminds herself, like a comforting hug. Everyone but her partner, who breaks rules as freely as wind.

(She sits next to him in an airtight metal box, day after day. She knows these things.)

“ _Four and a half_ points per pound!”

“Five and a half,” George corrects.

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

“Five and a half points per pound?”

“Six if you buy the own-brand toilet roll.”

“Seriously?” Jack says, looking impressed.

The queue at their till is lengthening, back towards the closed-for-maintenance bakery. Someone clears their throat in polite British shorthand for _Get the fuck on with it._ Jack is as socially inept as he is thick-skinned, but George will give him this: he makes up for deficiencies in several key areas, when it comes to taking hints. He picks up where he left off, unabashed.

“Someone wants nicking for this!”

The till girl leans towards him. Her name badge, peeping out behind a white-blonde plait, says _Gail_. Her voice is cool—a poise George strives daily to achieve, dealing with Jack—but her eyes are flashing murder. “Honeybee's been _rebranded_. Due to bad publicity...”

“You mean the crazy bint at HQ who was knocking off your customers,” says Jack. He winks. Flashes his toothiest grin. “I nicked her, too.”

She wafts the form at him, blurring the tiny rainbows on her nails, instead of asking for his number. He accepts it as reluctantly as a casefile, and begins the search for his card. The line behind them groans in despair.

“ _R_ _ebrand_ _ed_ ,” he mutters to George. “What a load of dressed-up bollocks.”

“Sounds like you preferred the old model,” she says, and instantly regrets it. It sounds even to her like she's fishing: which she is, of course. She's been doing a lot of strange things, since she was partnered with Jack. She's making a mental shopping list of his many personality flaws, for Christ's sake, because lists keep her calm, and because she likes order, and neat little boxes, and everything he doesn't.

Jack likes things to be _amazing_. The word he used to describe his ex-partner: standing clear from a drunken haze, rousing George's competitive instincts. It's haunted her ever after, like the ghost of Christmas Past. What does it matter if she jumps at any hint of her predecessor; flinches at the faintest suspicion that she might not, for once, be the best?

At least _she_ is mature enough to notice, and sufficiently self-aware that she'll admit it.

“Hey. Who didn't?” Jack says, strolling off with his sandwich, Sprite and slab of fruitcake.

George takes it in. Is sufficiently self-aware that she'll admit it kind of, well... _s_ _tings_.

 

 

“What on the Chief Constable's lunch order is _that_?” Tony demands, skidding to a stop with two steaming bowls of pasta, en route to waiting mouths.

(Today's special is _Beef_ _Riga-Tony_ , with a curl of dark chocolate. George speed-read the menu on the way in.)

Jack is playing tonsil-hockey with his prawn and avocado. She opens her mouth to answer, but he beats her to it, words wrestling past crumbs.

“Have you ever tried spending the morning in a supermarket? The subliminal messaging is _off the scale_.”

“ _I_ left with nothing,” George says primly.

“You could at least have hit the lingerie,” Jack says. “Got yourself a frilly pair of knickers. Bit of lace, in case you ever pull.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, it's all on expenses, yeah?” He takes a swig from his can. “Should have gone for that stonking great eclair.”

“What do you mean, _in_ case _I_ _ever p_ _ull_...”

Tony deposits his creations and rests the tray on the bar. He frowns at Jack's lunch, the crust left so far untouched.

“Word on the grapevine is, someone else found a razor blade in their BLT...”

“The grapevine needs its ears syringing,” Jack says. “Latest was an _FBB_. Fresh baked baguette.”

He bites down on something; hard enough for enamel to sing. His eyes widen. His face says: _Oh shit_.

George jumps up, passing him a tissue, whipping a specimen jar from her pocket. “Try to spit it out— _carefully._ Naz prefers his samples completely intact...”

Jack growls at her. He deposits the offending item as instructed. George glances down.

“They put a piece of tooth in your sandwich? The sick bastard...”

“It's _my tooth_ ,” Jack moans. He washes his mouth with fizz. “Bloody hell. For £2.99, you'd think they'd stone the avocado.”

“For £2.99,” Tony says sadly, “I'd use fresh prawns.”

Another stool screeches up. Naz hops on it, stretching a hand towards the cake. Jack slaps his palm on it like they're playing Snap.

“What have you got so far then?” Tony asks. “Industrial sabotage, or worker with an axe to grind?”

“It's definitely the girl on the till,” Jack says. “Face like Aunt Bessie.”

Naz frowns. “Aunt Bessie of the frozen potatoes?”

“They're on three-for-two this week,” Jack informs him.

“Bargain,” says Naz. Tony shakes his head, aghast.

“I have plenty of theories,” George says. “But little hard evidence to support them, yet. I have no clue what to put in my report.”

“Start with the facts, babe,” Tony advises. “The rest will follow. It always does.”

Jack's phone beeps. He checks the screen, scowls, and busies himself poking the fruitcake into shape. It's begging for a punchline, but George's brain is tied up on business. She flips open her notebook to follow Tony's suggestion, instead.

“Three foreign objects discovered in produce—all brought in from the same factory in Croydon—in the space of a week. Once is an accident, twice is negligence: this is a pattern. The store's parent company has kept it under wraps by buying off those affected with vouchers, but rumours are spreading on social media. Our objective is to find the perpetrator before it affects their share prices—”

She pauses. Peels apart two stuck-together pages. “Which was from my interview with the chief executive. Obviously.”

“I had my sources check out the supply chain,” Tony says. “The process monitoring is well above scratch. No signs of contamination, malicious or otherwise.”

“My guys have found nothing unusual on their CCTV,” Naz reports. He rubs his eyes. “All one hundred and sixty-eight hours of it.”

“Then it's a localised incident,” George says. “Exactly as my initial assessment indicated. We need to concentrate on areas of the store that are off-limits to the public. Look more closely at how and when the stock reaches the shelves, and where it's being intercepted.” She folds her arms on the bar, eyeballing Jack. Daring him to disagree. “Which means we're going shopping again.”

 “On _expenses_ ,” he reminds her. He pokes at his jaw. “So this place sells superglue...right?”

 

 

“The company has been suffering financially since the Honeybee affair,” the store manager admits. Xavier Jessop, who is 29 years old, according to George's ultra-comprehensive notes. He has one cat, one blog, an enormous mortgage, and a second class degree in marketing. He pronounces his name like it starts with an H, and not like the bald one out of _X-Men_. His face turns purple when you get it wrong, or so Jack claims.

He comes to a halt, polished shoes squeaking, as Jack stops the trolley and fills it with an Indian restaurant's worth of spices. “I'm sorry, is this for show, or—”

“We're multi-tasking,” Jack says. He holds up one of Tony's paper napkins, covered in Tony's tidy print on one side, and Naz's show-off scrawl on the other. “We have a list.”

Xavier is forced to play catch up as Jack powers on. He's at least one neatly-parted head taller than Jack, George realises. All it takes is a stride of his spindly legs.

“The truth is, I'm under a lot of pressure from up high to reduce costs. We've had to lay people off. Some have had their hours cut; wages too. We used to stack the shelves well into the early hours. Now we close at ten, and lock the doors at midnight.”

“So you believe this is about revenge?” George asks. She tosses in some Bisto.

“Well, what else would it be?”

“Your chief executive, Mr Forsyth, seemed very concerned about publicity. Maybe you decided to go nuclear. Staged the whole thing, so you can make a show of how caring and compassionate your company really is.”

“By badly injuring our few remaining customers?” Xavier sputters.

“It's a step up from murdering them,” Jack points out. He squints at the list. “Where would we find vanilla bean...pesto? Bloody hell, imagine that on your pasta.”

 “It's _paste_ ,” Xavier says.

“And I absolutely respect your right to pronounce it that way,” Jack says, mouthing _Se_ _riously?_ to George.

“Aisle eleven,” Xavier says, accepting defeat. “Look, you can't actually believe that I had anything to do with this...”

“You're first in in the morning and the last to leave at night,” George says. “You had ample opportunity to tamper with the produce.”

“Yeah,” Jack says, “but why would he?”

(They didn't discuss Jack playing clueless cop, exactly. It's as organic as Tony's eighteen tins of chopped tomatoes.)

“So he can pin the blame on the staff who've been here longest,” George explains. It's all part of the dance, but it still gives her a thrill. She's always been first to raise her hand in the classroom. “The ones who have watertight contracts with a guaranteed number of hours. Cheaper _and_ faster to get rid, if you're forced to dismiss them.”

Xavier lifts a hand to tug at his ear. His cufflinks are bold gold Xs. “You've examined our stockrooms and loading bays,” he says. “Interviewed my staff. Searched their lockers. Charged around the cash office. And this is the best you can come up with?”

“We're simply exploring each and every line of enquiry, Mr Jessop.”

“Don't leave the premises,” Jack adds. “We might want to speak with you again before closing.”

Xavier's mouth twists in frustration. The harsh strip lights catch his lips, which catch George's attention. They're like pink slugs, nesting in a den of designer stubble. They glisten at the corners, like he's been licking glitter. She files away the observation as he turns to go. Jack blocks his way, holding up the list.

“Got any onions in the back? You've run out.”

“Try the freezers,” Xavier says. “We have them ready diced. Each bag comes with our patented no-cry guarantee.”

George bites back a snort. Xavier and Jack stare at her.

“I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. I mean, the whole reason onions make you cry is because cutting into the cells releases an enzyme which converts amino acid sulfoxides into sulfenic acid, which irritates the lachrymal glands in the eye. By purchasing them ready diced, you avoid being exposed to that reaction. You'd probably only start crying if you were really, _really_ upset about something when you opened the bag...”

“Like the balance on your Sting card,” Jack offers. “For instance.”

Xavier disappears with a stomp of his pricey shoes. The trolley and custodians trundle on. The floor is sparkling, George notices. Without the smell of freshly baked baguettes to overpower everything else, the store smells strongly of bleach.

“Definitely wasn't Professor X,” Jack says. “He's just a pretentious tosser who can't eat a meal without sticking a photo of it on the internet. He'd starve to death if his wifi went down. I reckon we should look more closely at the customers who found this gear. They could have planted it themselves, after they left the shop. The three of them could all be in on it.”

It's George's turn to play dumb. “But why would they bother?”

“Compensation, of course. You try saving up for a track day on five and a half points a pound.”

“They're each getting a £10 voucher,” George says. “You'd get better returns stockpiling loo roll.”

“I'll message Tony,” he says, “get him on to it. There might be something we missed.” He pulls out his phone. George catches a glimpse of the screen before he clears it. It says, in capital letters: **DICK**.

“Is that your shopping list, then?”

Jack glances over and narrowly avoids colliding with a staff member, kneeling on the floor, arranging cardboard trays of chocolate. It's Gail-with-the-plaits. Her fingers tighten menacingly around a 400 gram Toblerone.

“Spotted dick,” George guesses. “Or someone requesting a picture?..”

“It's from Kate,” Jack says.

“Your new girlfriend Kate?”

“My old partner Kate.”

George feels that familiar flare of competition. Mixed with disbelief. “Your old partner Kate wants a dick pic?”

“She's _calling_ me a dick.” He finishes tapping the message and hits Send. The phone returns an angry tone. “Shit, no reception. I'll have to go outside. Must be too far in.”

“Hmm,” says George.

Jack rolls his eyes. “Look, Kate is as big a pain in the arse from a distance as she is up close, okay? Let's get back to the job before Naz has to suck his spuds up with a straw.”

George lets it go. Until later, anyway. Tony always knows more than Jack does, even when it comes to Jack himself; plus, he makes cocktails. She scans through the list. The only things left to get are Naz's matches, and Tony's jasmine rice. Rice, and every spice under the sun: her best deduction is that he's making a curry. On current form, it'll have a creative name, and burn her as badly as the curiosity that's seething through her.

“What makes you so sure it's _not_ the manager?”

“A stupid name doesn't make you Sweeney Todd,” Jack says. “And my money is still on the till girl.”

“Are we talking cold hard cash? Because if I remember correctly, the last bet we made...that case with the kissogram and the exploding mince pies...you lost.”

“If you want to make another bet, partner, you need to pick a side.”

George steers the trolley away from a yellow warning sign. Next to it is an angular, red-haired man with an equally red face, and a smooth, prominent chin.

“Okay then. If not the manager... What about the guy mopping the floor in the background?..”

“That is shocking,” Jack says. “Automatically blaming the ginger. Picking on the poorest, most vulnerable, most badly-paid member of our society...”

“You finally read your Tolerant Policing handbook, I see.”

“I am the _definition_ of tolerant policing,” Jack says. He points a finger at the floor. “Oi freckles! You missed a spot.”

George maintains her zen exterior. Adds another tick to item number three, inside.

 _Oblivious. Completely,_ _bloody, t_ _otally,_ _oblivious_.

 

 

George sets up shop in Xavier's office while Jack, having reached Tony, takes his enquiries to the canteen. He's on the trail of a nugget of gossip, as much as solid evidence. Anything at all that gives them a better lead than half-baked theories, or Jack's favoured investigative tool, gut instinct.

She, as usual, is relying on graft. There are still six interviews left to conduct, even with half the workforce down the dole queue.

While she's waiting for the first to arrive, she takes a look around. It's a square box of a room, walls painted in calming blue. The furniture is minimal, and functional. There's an Ikea desk masquerading as pine, a padded chair on one side and a shorter, hard-backed version on the other. Two slate-grey filing cabinets. Two plants: a potted fern and a yellowing Peace Lily. One probable cross-cut shredder, tucked beneath a peeling windowsill. One stained plastic litter bin by the door, stuffed to capacity.

George's own office would probably look a lot like this; if she had an office, that is, instead of a friendly local bar. Because yes, amazing as Tony's cocktails are, George really _would_ like an office of her own sometimes. There's something in the human psyche that most dislikes in others the things it lacks in itself. Even so, she can't help but distrust anyone this pathologically tidy.

Revealing so little of yourself in your own space only makes it seem like you have things to hide.

The filing cabinets are locked, and the key is unsurprisingly not taped beneath the desk. George examines the contents of that instead. A framed photograph of a fluffy white cat takes pride of place. It's being squeezed by a tanned, beefy arm, and looks about to bite it. The rest says as little about the man who spends his working life here as the room around it. There's a computer, also locked. A phone, four pens arranged by length, stacks of pink and yellow post-its. And, finally, hidden beneath today's _Daily Telegraph_ , a goldmine of correspondence.

George pounces. She rifles through it. There are at least ten covering letters, signed by Xavier, tacked to copies of his CV. Underneath is a list of suggestions for how to respond to complaints about the rebranded loyalty card. In a move Jack would be proud of, there's a _y_ doodled on the logo, turning _Sting_ into _S_ _tingy_. Hidden at the bottom of the pile, there's a letter to Xavier from the Human Resources section at head office. It says that they've considered his request to take further action against a Gabriel Devine, and now consider the matter closed.

She walks around the desk with the letter, intent on its contents, and promptly collides with the person just entering the office—who in turn loses their balance, and topples the bin. The contents scatter across the carpet's thin pile.

“Shit!” George says.

“Fortunately not my department,” the red-headed cleaner says.

George stifles a smirk. She tosses the letter back on the desk and gets down on her knees to help him right things.

“I should have emptied it sooner,” he says. “We're a little stretched, as you've probably noticed.”

“It has been drawn to my attention,” George says. She frowns, glances at her notebook and its list of interviewees. “So you must be Clive...that can't be right. Is that right?”

“I was named after my grandfather,” he says. “And yes, I've heard it all before: it _is_ kind of weird for a twenty-two year old.”

Jack's shameless rush to judgement—item number four—is as contagious as Ebola. It's turned George's poker face rusty. Luckily, Clive seems to have taken the slip in good humour. He's a lot more attractive than she thought, up-close. Orange freckles, yes, and a spot of rosacea round the cheeks; offset by even white teeth, and hypnotic green eyes. Teasingly tight t-shirt, a map of Australia printed on it. Handy with a mop, but not _too_ handy. Maybe even handy elsewhere...not that she'll ever find out.

She is far too professional to hit on a witness, unlike a certain someone not a million miles away.

(God, it _is_ a shame about the chin, though.)

She picks up a crumpled ball of paper and flattens it out. It's blank, except for the creases, and one short, handwritten line. The beginnings of a letter: _D_ _EAR GA_ , with a line struck through it. A letter to the mysterious Gabriel Devine? It's Xavier's handwriting, judging by his signature, though Naz would have to run an analysis to be sure.

“Are you looking for clues in the rubbish?” Clive asks, nose wrinkling in disgust.

George slips the ball of paper into her jacket pocket. “A good detective takes any and all information into consideration, however—” She wipes her hands on her sadly dry-clean only trousers. “— _unhygienic_ the source.”

“So this shrivelled piece of lettuce?” he says, holding up a limp green leaf.

“Oh, it's a dead giveaway.”

“And this ring doughnut bag?”

“Definitely the final piece of the puzzle,” George says.

There are no further abandoned letters in the litter. Despite the banter, the rest is composed of nothing more significant than food waste: crushed fizzy drink cans, sandwich wrappers, slivers of foil that smell more like cheese than hard drugs, paper bags both sticky and not. It's probably Xavier's lunch. It looks like he has the same thing every day, and ninety percent of it is sugar. George isn't sure how he stays so thin. But she would lay money on him having several fillings, as well as an ant problem in the summer, if he doesn't empty his bin more often.

“Clive,” she says, as he swipes the newspaper to squash down the rubbish, “do you know who Gabriel Devine is?”

“Never met them,” he says. “But the name sounds familiar. I'm pretty sure he was the nightwatchman—before Xavier fired him.”

“On what grounds?

“He told him they didn't need men at work anymore, now they had the cameras.”

George rests on the edge of the desk, toes crossed it doesn't leave her with splinters. “So there were no personal issues between them? No misconduct involved?

“Well, that came after,” Clive says, pushing the bin back with long, elegant fingers.

“Tell me everything you know,” George demands. She remembers her psychology course, and the A grade she got for it, and smiles.

Clive smiles right back.

 

 

“Have you ever felt any animosity towards your customers?” Jack is asking when George makes a beeline for him in the canteen, clutching her notebook in triumph. Five interviews complete, and finally a gleam of potential.

The sixth, Gail, didn't bother turning up. But she's sitting opposite Jack, sticking a loose rainbow back on with glue.

Jack repeats the question. She shrugs and says, “All the time.”

“Okay, so, for the record, remembering that you are talking to an officer of the law with the power to charge you: have you ever thought about, say...bashing their brains in with a tin of beans? Suffocating them with a super sturdy bag for life, which you'll replace free of charge if it breaks?”

“You've clearly never worked in a shop,” Gail says.

Jack glares at her. “Listen up, Bessie—”

George clears her throat and pulls out a chair. There's a book on the table between them ( _Sugar_ _Rots Your Brain and Shrinks Your Tits: A Guide_ ), and both look ready to weaponize it.

“I mean, Heidi—”

“Gail Plait,” George supplies in a voice that is low enough—fortunately—for only Jack to catch. Jack frowns. George blinks. She doesn't even watch _Coronation Street_. She has, however, spent the day walking past _Inside Soap_. Repeatedly, at every checkout.

“Gail Andrews,” she says. “Did you on three occasions in the last week plant razor blades in a sandwich, a doughnut and a fresh baked baguette?”

“No,” Gail says, lifting her chin in defiance. She purses sparkly-glossed lips, swollen and gritted by the cold. “But whoever did deserves an award.”

Jack slams a hand on the table. “We're talking about three innocent women here! Placed in harm's way when all they wanted was their lunch! Just because they were too cheap to go to Pret doesn't mean they deserved to chow on a blade. They could have _died_. And then we'd be here investigating a murder, which is what we do when we're not covering for Gaz and Dave while they're on their annual booze cruise in Tenerife. So I suggest you start taking this seriously, blondie. Because me and my partner here are pretty good at what we do, and we _will_ catch the scumbag who did this. Who thought attempted murder was one big joke...just like you.”

George leans in. “We're treating this as attempted murder now?”

Jack shrugs. But the speech gets results. Gail looks almost contrite.

“You don't know what it's like,” she says. “Most people are nice. But then you get the wankers who tell you to smile. Or leave frozen food on the shelves so it turns into a puddle. Or joke that something's free when it doesn't scan, like you've never heard _that_ before. Or moan about the Sting card as if you were personally responsible for the changes. Or think it's hilarious to tell you that you need a break when you've been working harder all week than they ever will _in the rest of their life_...”

“I think that's everything for now,” George says, since Jack seems frozen in terror, and the book is a hardback. “We'll let you know if there's anything further.”

Gail flicks her plaits back, snatches up her book and bottle of glue, and stalks off. Jack exhales slowly.

“Strange lady,” George says. “Does she make you nervous?”

“I think we ought to dig up her back garden,” he says. “Make sure there's no one buried there.”

George can't contain it any longer. She can almost feel herself, phantom hand in the air, waving about. “Okay, so the good news is, it looks like you're going to lose our bet. The other news is, we have a potential new suspect.”

“What, another?” Jack says.

“Gabriel Devine. The store's former nightwatchman. Six foot four and full of muscle. Sacked, personally, by Xavier, who claimed it was because of cost cutting. But the real reason was that a set of keys had gone missing. _Gabriel's_ keys. Gabriel denied all knowledge, said someone else must have taken them. Xavier refused to give him the benefit of the doubt. He threatened to refer the matter to us, and then the keys turned up again. By this time, Gabriel's already got the sack. Xavier refused to reinstate him. Gabriel was heard in his office, claiming that it was _Xavier_ who had stolen his keys. He was shouting at the top of his lungs about how Xavier was going to find out, one day very soon, how it felt to lose his job when he didn't deserve it.”

“And you know all this...how?”

“Clive the cleaner told me. Oh, and he's going to take our shopping and put it in his cupboard till we're done. He says it's almost as cold as the freezers in there.”

“Sounds cool.”

“You're hilarious. Also, I found _this—_ ” She produces the letter from her pocket and hands it to Jack. He unfolds it. “—in Xavier's bin.”

Jack grimaces. He chucks back the letter. “Right. So Xavier has form for framing people he doesn't like, or so Gabriel believes. He develops a conscience at some point between firing sixty people and trying to kill three of his customers, so starts writing him a letter to apologise. He then changes his mind and chucks it in the bin.”

“The theory I'm actually developing is that Xavier is trying to finish what the Honeybee scandal started. Take down the company, get his own back on the bosses who've made him the fall guy for their dirty work. 'DEAR GA': Forsyth's first name is Gavin. Xavier is clearly a deeply unhappy man, stuck playing both sides. He's applying for new jobs. Defacing the Sting card logo...”

Jack looks impressed for a second. But then it fades to a frown.

“Well, yeah. But couldn't this just as easily be a letter pledging his naked soul to Gaby Roslin? Or Plaity? She should be next on the hit list. Terrible attitude to her job. I mean, at least take pride in your work, am I right? _I'd_ sack her.”

“You mean you'd shag her,” George says, since it's blindingly obvious, even if nothing else is.

“Did you see her nails?” he says. It isn't a denial.

“I did. They were cute.”

“They were _rainbows_. Which, according to my handbook, makes her an angry, man-hating lesbian. With plaits like a five-year-old. An angry, five-year-old, man-hating lesbian. With plaits...”

“I'm sorry to tell you this Jack, but I'm pretty sure the only man she hates is you.”

He splutters a protest. Splutters some more. George takes pity on him, and changes the subject.

“You're right,” she says. It only makes her teeth grit a little, to admit. That sort of progress is going to look great on her next CPD. “The letter proves nothing. It could be to anyone. We're nowhere nearer the truth than when we started. It's still just a lot of assumptions, and not a lot of fact.”

“Hey, there's nothing wrong with trusting your instincts,” Jack says, grasping the out. “But yours seem centred around pinning the blame on the boss. I mean, you must have had some shitty bosses in your time. You have issues. Which is fine, because that's what police shrinks are for. You should make an appointment.”

George gives him her steely gaze, the one she practised before she started this job, that cracks mirrors and suspects alike. Jack takes the hint.

“Isn't it far more likely that it's _Gabriel_ who's doing all this, to get his own back on Xavier? Using the set of keys he obviously went and copied before replacing them and pretending he'd found them? Hey, who hasn't done _that_ before...”

“Xavier is responsible for this somehow. I can feel it. I'm following my instincts, like you told me to.”

“Since when do you do anything I tell you?” Jack wonders.

George closes her notebook, thoroughly deflated. “We have nothing but hearsay,” she admits. “When what we need most is evidence.”

“Well, I can help with that,” Naz's voice says. George and Jack whirl around.

He gives them a thumbs up. “It just so happens that I've got a _shitload_ of it.”

 

 

An echoing canteen with dusty spaces where the snack machines once sat lacks the ambience, and facilities, of Tony's bar. But there's still a fridge, a kettle and a cupboard of basics. Jack can't function in his workspace without refreshments, so he makes them all coffee—opting to leave it black after a sniff of the milk—and roots out bourbon biscuits. They settle down for a conference as George discovers there's reception on this floor, dials Tony, and puts him on speaker.

There are bustling bar noises in the background, the hum of chatter and tinkle of glass. If George closed her eyes, it would feel like being back at base.

(Well, almost. Her phone isn't _that_ good.)

“There are no links between the three women that I can find,” Tony reports. “Cheers, guys. I'll see you later.”

“Is that it?” Jack says.

“Customer.”

“Oh.”

“The first, Susanne Hennessey, is a personal assistant. The second, Emily Lin, is a teacher. The third, Nadia Begum, works in sales. Now she's the interesting one. She complained to the store only last month—to Xavier personally—about the changes to the loyalty card scheme.”

“Giving him reason to target her,” George says. She taps her notebook. “Something which neither of them disclosed in their interviews.”

“I bet he has hundreds of people moaning at him every day,” Jack says. “There's no reason he'd remember her in particular.”

Tony clears his throat. Either he begs to differ, or he's got a cold coming on. George seizes on it anyway.

“Unless he _did..._ ”

“Give me a detailed description of the last person who bitched at you in a pub about getting done for speeding.”

“No one has ever bitched at me in a pub about getting done for speeding.”

“As far as you remember,” Jack says, looking pleased with himself.

“How did you find this out, Tone?” Naz asks.

“I invited them all round for a complimentary drink,” he says. “Which reminds me, Jack. You owe me sixty-two pounds and thirty-eight pence.”

Jack chokes on his Nescafe. “We went and did your shopping, you tight bastard!”

“Your silver tongue is worth every penny,” George says. “Anything else you got from them?”

“Well, Nadia enjoys red wine and long walks on the beach. And her favourite colour is blue.”

“Bleeding hell,” Naz says. “Save some for the rest of us, _please_.”

“If the girls are criminal masterminds, they're working independently. They have nothing in common. Not even a mutual friend on Facebook. The only thing that connects them is that they work within a one-mile radius of the store, and buy their lunch there every day.”

“What a waste of money,” Jack says. “You know how much they'd save if they took their own?”

George exchanges a wry look with Naz. Adds another tick against items three and four.

“They don't buy the same things as each other, either,” Tony says. “Susanne likes BLTs. She lets them sit for a while, warm up a bit. She's got sensitive teeth since she had them bleached. Emily prefers chicken, mayonnaise scraped off till there's a nice thin coating. If it's thick and lumpy it reminds her of the sap she saw running down a tree in the playground. Hasn't touched a peach yoghurt since. Nadia goes for the salmon and watercress, unless it looks soggy, and then she'll pick the prawn and avocado. On wheat or rye, but never, ever white. She eats her crusts, too. Her mum told her she wouldn't get curly hair unless she did...”

Jack pats his head discreetly.

“...and she's _still_ waiting.”

“Now you're just showing off,” says Naz.

“So what the ladies buy is different. But they always buy the exact same things _themselves_.”

“Making them easy for Xavier to target,” George argues. “People are predictable. If you've studied your customers, and you know one of them always buys the same sandwich, or doughnut, or fresh baked baguette...”

“But if he was targeting them specifically,” Naz says, “how would he know which sandwich or doughnut or baguette they were going to pick?”

“He wouldn't,” says Jack. He dunks his biscuit. “Which makes it much more likely that the victims were totally random. Just the luck of the draw.”

George opens her mouth to counter. Naz beats her to the punch, with another piece of the puzzle.

“Maybe this will help. It's the analysis on the razor blades. Finally came back from the lab.”

“DNA?” George says hopefully. “Fingerprints?”

“Nothing conclusive. What is interesting is the blades themselves. Let's just say they're not the best a man can get.”

George, Jack and Tony groan. Naz looks as chuffed as if they were applauding.

“They're not only not that sharp, they're a highly irregular size and shape, which means it's unlikely they were purchased on the high street. But we'll get to that later. First, the composition. Now, almost every razor blade on the market in the UK is composed of stainless steel. You can also buy carbon steel blades, which are much rarer, because the lower chromium content means they rust faster. If you examine it under a microscope, you can see there's evidence of corrosion along the edge of this blade.”

Now he's speaking George's language. He passes her an evidence bag. She examines the contents.

“So anyone using these is risking a nasty rash. Staphylococcus infection?”

“Possibly,” Naz says. “Friction is the most common cause of shaving rashes, though. Or nickel sensitivity. Did you know that up to ten percent of men in industrialised nations are allergic to nickel?”

“And up to twenty percent of women,” George says. “I read the study.”

Science is their secret handshake. They beam at each other.

“When you've quite finished swapping geeky trivia,” Jack says, “how is this going to help us work out who planted these damn things?”

“It's not,” Naz says.

“It's not?”

“Not yet. Okay, so, in 2007 a mate of mine went on exchange in Calcutta, to help investigate why their coins were disappearing...”

“Oh Jesus Christ,” Jack says.

“No, no, wait, it was actually quite serious. There was a national shortage. People were getting paid in cardboard. It turned out the coins were being melted down into razor blades, and smuggled across the border into Bangladesh. The Indian police confiscated a ton of them. Now, these blades not only share their dimensions, they also match the metallurgical analysis done at the time. Who knows where they've been in the meantime...which partly explains the rust.”

“So we're looking for an Indian with a shaving rash and a very hot oven,” Jack says. “That helps, Naz. That helps a lot.”

“I've been through all the listings in the last month for razor blades of this specification, on every popular auction site...” Naz passes George a piece of paper. “Eighty-six sales in total. Twenty-nine left negative feedback, four of which mentioned the bluntness, and eight of which commented specifically on the rust.”

Jack starts quizzing Naz on how his mate managed to wangle a jolly-slash-working holiday to a hot country. Tony chimes in with the time he was seconded to the Mexican fraud squad, and sounds completely serious about it. George works her way down the list of usernames, waiting for something to jump out. She searches her memory for the name of Xavier's blog— _Savvy Xavvy_ , wasn't it?—and starts to realise how popular the letter X is when spicing up a pseudonym.

 _stacey-mareexxx_. _xxzzandyzzxx_. _xsassygiraffe5x_. _mrpeter.dixon999_.

Hang on a second. Is that one her _dad_?

“X marks the spot,” she says. Naz turns his head. So does Jack. And because Jack is occasionally a capable detective, as well as an idle manchild, a flicker of understanding dawns in his eyes.

“Naz, mate, have you got those photos of the food? The ones the blades were found in?”

“Sure,” he says, producing three glossy photographs: the remains of a sugared ring doughnut, a BLT in triangular plastic, and a fresh baked baguette, complete with lipstick-rimmed bitemarks.

“Talk to me, people,” Tony says. “What are you seeing?”

“Xs that mark the spot,” Jack says. He points at each photograph in turn, and George notices them for the first time, hidden in plain sight. An X in marker pen on the flap of the sandwich wrapper, framed with blobs of glue. An X scored across the doughnut, like it's a hot cross bun. An X on the baguette, etched in the puffy part where the dough rises and splits.

“It's a suggestion technique,” she realises. She thinks of Xavier's predictable, never-changing lunch choices, laid bare in his bin; the proud flash of his cufflinks; the flourish of the initial in his signature. “Xavier isn't our guy: he's the target!”

George hates being proved wrong. But the sting of it is dampened by the excitement of a breakthrough, and the balance it creates. Working with Jack is a daily tug-of-war, except for those moments when they set aside the one-upmanship and focus on the case. They're becoming a well-oiled machine, the way she always envisaged a partnership to be. Connecting, at the core. Merging into one...and a string of other sexual-sounding metaphors she would prefer not to pursue. Even if Jack _is_ starting to rub off on her.

Shit. She did it again.

“He's going to try again,” Jack says. “ASAP.”

“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?”

“It would kill some time while we wait for the warrant.”

“And who knows how long uniform might take to bring in Gabriel.”

“This is our chance.”

“We should take it.”

“Guys, guys,” says Naz. “You've completely lost me.”

But Tony is chuckling in approval, on the other end of the phone. He's either kneading dough, or that's the sound of his hands, clasping in glee. “I love it when a plan comes together,” he says.

It's obvious he's talking about more than the plan. George nods at Jack. Jack nods back. She turns to Naz, and begins to explain.

 

 

“This was definitely not how I imagined my evening,” Jack complains. “You realise I skipped _Kitchen Maestro_ for this?”

George has no idea what he's talking about. It's all noise, after three-and-a-half hours. She stretches her legs and wriggles back, digging an elbow in his side. Jack is unprepared. He starts to wobble, arms flailing as he struggles for balance. He shoves her back, tussling for space on a seat as slippery as an ice rink.

One narrow toilet cubicle is nowhere near big enough for two tall DIs to hide in. It involves a lot of cramping, and a monumental amount of bitching.

It was a solid plan. Stake out the supermarket for the night, wait for Gabriel to make a move, and catch him in the act. Case closed, back to Tony's for breakfast. And then the X factor, in the shape of Xavier, intervened. In hindsight, George should have stopped Jack from mispronouncing his name a tad sooner. She should have stuck cotton wool in her ears, so it wouldn't catch on. And maybe that faint air of judgement as she quizzed him about his lunch schedule was not, in retrospect, a smart idea.

“So let me get this straight,” she'd said. “BLT on a Monday. BLT on a Tuesday. Fresh baked baguette with a Dairylea triangle on Wednesday and Thursday. A Pot Noodle on Friday. All washed down with Fanta and a doughnut.”

“You don't advertise _that_ on your fancy food blog,” Jack said.

By the time they'd got into a heated debate about daily multi-vitamins, and the ethics of nicking photos off the Gourmet Channel website and pretending you'd cooked them yourself, Xavier's face had resembled Ribena. He'd been in no mood to authorise a sleepover, or answer questions about Gabriel Devine.

“I don't discuss former members of staff,” he'd sniffed, before ordering them from the store, Gail sidling up behind him, staring daggers.

Which left Plan B: sneaking in through an open window and hiding in the staff toilets, tacking a notice to a cubicle door to leave them undisturbed. They'd held their breath when the night shift cleaner started mopping up, crouching on the toilet seat, squashed so close George could hear Jack's heart beating. He'd sneezed at one point, blaming her shampoo. When George risked a glance over the door, the cleaner had her earbuds in. She was singing along to Gemma G's first solo album, none the wiser.

(Or so Jack informed her afterwards; being the proud possessor of a signed and dedicated copy.)

George flicks her torch on to check her watch. The beam takes in the graffiti on the wall. There's one that says GAIL ♥, with a streaky mark next to it, the object of her affection wiped clean off. George has spent the last hour trying and failing to decipher it.

“It's half past twelve,” she says. “Time we went.”

“I went ten minutes ago, remember?”

George buttons up her coat. “And may we never remember it again.”

“I can't walk,” Jack says. “My leg's gone dead.”

He slings a heavy arm around George's shoulders as she drags him from the cubicle. They shuffle to the ground floor, like they're running a three-legged crawl. Except for the reflective strips on the stairs, the shimmer of moonlight from the windows above, it's pitch black. It's also extremely cold. Never mind frilly knickers; George might have to help herself to the thermal sort, if this goes on all night.

Jack straightens up as they hit the loading bay, grousing about tingles. They pass the boiler room, and the narrow corridor that leads to the cleaning cupboard. Next come the storerooms, and back entrance to the bakery. Through the next set of swing doors, the shop sits, waiting for them. Rows of shelves peek from fuzzy shadow. They expand like a concertina into the darkness, creating the illusion of infinite space.

It's Sunday-morning still, frozen like a photograph. But for the buzz of freezers, it's eerily quiet. It feels like they've been shrunk and placed in Barbie's Dream Supermarket, after the kids have gone to bed, and the lights are out in the playroom.

George never got so much as a Dreamhouse. No wonder she started plundering hamsters.

“Let's be honest,” Jack says. “Getting locked in a supermarket overnight is every woman's number one sexual fantasy.”

“You don't know many women, do you,” says George.

“Are we talking biblically here? Or would you like me to count the ones I swap stimulating conversation with, every morning on the riverfront?”

“The ducks and the dogs?”

“One of them, right: total bitch. She actually started humping my leg. And then there was her puppy...”

George consults her mental map, decides the glow of fridges is sufficient to navigate by, and takes a stride to her right. The original plan called for a sweep—yes, Naz, that would be a _supermarket sweep—_ every thirty minutes. Since she's a great advocate of plans, she's going to stick to it.

She passes the fresh fish, meats and a wall of TVs, squares of silent black, without incident. She's made it as far as the clothing section by the time she hears footsteps. George grabs her torch and whirls around. Jack peers through his fingers, shielding him from the shock of the beam.

“We were supposed to be exploring the shop floor separately,” George reminds him, “and meeting back at the cream cakes.”

“Which is great in theory,” Jack begins, “and also the nice bright light of day. Everything's different at night. You could get lost.”

“ _I_ could get lost?”

“Or injured. I mean, what if you skid on a banana peel? Or fall over the rotisserie, hitting the switch with your head on the way down, and roasting yourself to a shish kebab?”

“We've already passed the rotisserie, Jack.”

“The freezers, then. You think your dad's ever going to let me hear the end of it, you ending up an ice pop?”

“You're scared of the dark,” George says.

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I'm genuinely concerned for your safety. I know what you're like when you get the bit between your teeth. Like the Terminator. Crossed with Ming the Merciless.”

George has lost count of where she is on her list. She's tired, and cold, and hungry, and she's also lost her patience. Her torch slices an arc through the air as she turns to give him both barrels. A disembodied face flashes past, looming beside them.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Jack yells.

George will forever deny having emitted a high-pitched shrieking sound. Her instincts kick in. She kicks out. A body crashes to the floor. Its head topples off, and skittles away. They stare down at the headless corpse.

“You murdered an innocent bystander,” Jack says. “Now I have to arrest you.”

“What am I looking at? Fifteen years?”

“Thirty to life, easy. Look at it. It's got kids.”

“And a _really_ nice scarf.”

It's soft and fluffy, a plain china blue. Jack bends down and unknots it from the stump of the neck. He hands it to George. Warmth, and peace, are restored.

They do eight complete circuits of the shop, both front and back, without encountering anything suspicious. By the third, George has acquired a jar of Marmite, a packet of breadsticks, and gloves to match her scarf. Two circuits later, they've answered the call of the cream cakes: a passion fruit eclair for George and custard doughnuts for Jack. On the eighth go round, Jack's stomach is growling surrender. George has her torch between her teeth, reading the cover story in _Heat_. Gemma G is auditioning for a remake of _Goldfinger_ , and totes would duet on the theme song, if Daniel Craig is up for it.

“You can lick your lips now,” George says, having dared him not to, sixty minutes earlier.

“Better?” Jack asks. He screws up his eyes as George shines her torch in his face. Dust motes bob in the light. His lips are sparkling like Edward Cullen. The sight triggers something at the back of George's mind, nagging at her subconscious. There's a connection she's missing; she's sure of it. Something about Xavier. Something about his unfinished letter. Or something else?

She leans in, still searching. Jack's eyes flick open. His breath is sweet and warms the tip of her nose. They stare at each other.

“I feel strange,” Jack says.

“Me too.”

“Like I'm going to be sick.”

George backs off, fearing for her new scarf. Jack presses a palm to his mouth.

“Have you answered your text yet?” George asks, to distract him.

“No reception, remember?”

George translates the mumbling. “You're stalling.”

“Now wait just a minute...”

“You've been acting weird all day. Extra mental. And don't tell me it's your tooth. It's Kate, isn't it? Something's going on.”

Jack sticks his hands in his pockets. He screws up his face, either feeling nauseous again, or preparing a confession. He opens his mouth to speak.

“Is that a light in the bakery?” he says.

“Is that a voice over there?” says George.

They're at the front of the store, by the flower stand. The car park is still zombie-movie-deserted outside. They turn towards the back wall, spying signs of life. There's a chink of light emerging, down under the empty racks, one that was definitely not there before. And a sound, over to its left. Conversation, and a rigid peal of laughter. The kind you only get in a can—and not the sort labelled Heinz.

“The TVs are on,” Jack says.

“Probably on a timer. Or we've tripped a sensor somehow.”

“Or it's a trap. Which means Gabriel is here. And he knows we're here, too.”

George would go cold, if she wasn't freezing her arse off already. She shuts off her torch. Both of them have, on reflex, begun to whisper.

“We have to split up,” says Jack. “Divide and conquer.”

“Is that such a good idea?”

“Says the woman who wanted to stumble around in the dark by herself instead of asking for help.”

In her career so far, George has made a point of keeping her face straight. Gail might have been told to smile more often, but her dad always said it was a bad idea, for a female copper (“Not that I'm one of them mythologists, Georgie.”). Even if someone gets a reaction from you, you never, ever let them see it. The twitch of a lip is all she'll allow herself, even when Jack and his quirks—that is, _b_ _ad_ _habits_ worth a slot on any sensible person's shit list—tickle her more than they should.

Christ, Kate must have been a saint. She opens her mouth to scream silently into the night.

“What's wrong with your face?” Jack says.

“I'll take the bakery,” says George. “You take the TVs.”

He pats her shoulder. It's a brief, awkward clasp. “Be careful.”

“You too.”

Jack heads off, chewed up by the shadows. George removes her gloves to holster her torch in her waistband. Something feathery tickles her hand. Her ponytail hasn't been that long since she was nine; she chopped it off to trick her mortal enemy, Jemima Sachs, into thinking she had a unicorn. She tackles the offender into submission and holds it up, squinting. It's...a fern. Or so the label says. The leaves look wrong, though. Different, somehow.

She muses on it as she creeps back towards the bakery. It's still cordoned off, sign pretending it's because of a broken oven and not a police investigation. It's only when her foot hits the threshold that the answer finally dawns on her.

And then the light goes out, and it's gone. Along with every other thought in her head.

 

 

George comes to with her face buried in fur. The hamsters are so soft and warm and fluffy. There's a blue one, and cuddled up to it, one that's brown with a ginger tint. It has a sprinkling of dandruff, could do with brushing. It's her favourite though, secretly. She pats it. She's going to call it Bungle. Or maybe something like—

Jack emits a groan. George frowns. She extracts her head from his hair, spitting out a mouthful. It smells of mandarins, which is an eye-opener on multiple levels. She levers herself up, leaning back against a cool, solid surface.

“Shit,” Jack says, sounding groggy, as he turns to see her. “I was hoping you'd come and rescue me.”

“What's the last thing you remember?”

“I was by the TVs. Thinking about who'd win in a fight between Aunt Bessie and Bernard Matthews. And then someone jumped me. They were tall. Muscles everywhere. Must have been six-two at least.”

George examines the back of her head. There's a nice round egg on it. “Who _would_ win?”

“Bernard, every time. He's got an army of turkeys. Bessie's got a wooden spoon.”

“She could strangle him with her apron strings.”

“Nah. Pecked to death, long before.”

It occurs to George that one or both of them has a concussion. Jack is babbling a bigger brand of nonsense than normal, and it's making perfect sense to her.

“I was going in to the bakery,” she says, struggling for focus. “I was thinking about something green. A lettuce. Or a fern. It might have been Fern Britton. She was giving eyeshadow tips in _Glow_. I mean, _Heat_.”

“We could do with some of that right now,” Jack says. He shivers as he hoists himself up. “Where are we, anyway?”

George accepts his hand and gets to her feet. Her breath is clouding in the air. Her torch—thankfully still there—reveals they're in a long, empty corridor. The air is tinged with peroxide. She follows the wall with a hand one way, while Jack goes the other. Thick, scratchy breeze blocks, a slick of paint on top. The wall bends to the left, leading to an alcove. There's a metal shelving unit, stacked with buckets and bottles. A stick with a wig on it; no, wait, a mop. A glut of plastic bags, straining at their seams with shopping.

“We're in the cleaning cupboard,” she calls, as Jack returns, looking glum.

“Door's shut tight. It's like the lock's been glued. We can't pick it.”

George pats her pockets and removes her phone. “No signal. Terrific.”

Jack slides to the floor. The set of his shoulders screams defeat. George sits next to him, siphoning off his body heat.

“Is this the part where we huddle?” says Jack.

“Naz and Tony know we're here,” she reminds him. “They'll realise something's wrong.”

He shakes his phone in frustration. “Before or after we turn into ice pops?”

“We are not going to turn into ice pops.”

“Well, you might not. You're fatter than me.”

“Which one of us works out again?”

“Women have more body fat than men. That is a rock-solid geeky fact.”

“So you have been listening when Naz and I talk forensics.”

“Nah. I used to go out with a pilates instructor.”

“Oh.” George rubs her head. “What was she like?”

“Flexible. She's the reason I'm so great in the sack. Get this, right: the next girl I met sent her flowers.”

“I really don't need to know this,” George mutters, but since circumstances are dire, adds, “You mean she cheated on you? With your ex?”

“God, I hope so,” Jack says. She feels his shoulders shrug as he pulls himself from the fantasy. “That's the point of exes, isn't it? They nag you senseless, whip you into shape, and then piss off. It's always the next in line who gets the benefit.”

He's in a reflective, imminent-freezing-to-death kind of mood. He's also possibly concussed, nursing a chipped tooth, and coming off a self-induced sugar high. George still can't let the opportunity pass her by. Maybe there's a bit more of the Terminator about her than she wants to believe.

“You're right about the body fat,” she says. “I have more of it than you. I'm easily going to survive this. I'll be sitting with a hot toddy at Tony's while they're carrying you out in a body bag. I'll eat you if I have to.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jack whimpers.

“So if there's anything you want to get off your conscience... A message you want me to give to anyone... Say, to Kate...”

“She found this house in Bristol she wanted to rent,” he says. “Said it was her dream house. The whole picket fences and roses in the garden deal. She sent the owner a hamper. Then a photoshopped picture of her non-existent kids, looking sad. Then she asked me for a reference. She didn't leave it up to me, oh no. She typed it up and sent it me to sign.”

George nods in approval.

“It was the usual sort of stuff. 'Kate is honest and reliable and very, very tidy.' Which she is. But I'd had a few, and I was bored. So I wrote another version. 'Kate is a pain in the arse. Her hobbies include screaming like a banshee and kneecapping her husband'. That sort of thing. All of which is true, in my defence...”

“You sent the wrong one.”

“I sent the wrong one.”

“You are _such_ a dick.”

“I'm a dick,” Jack concedes. A long breath escapes him. “And now she hates me. Even more than usual. And I can't stand the thought of it, because Kate is... Well, she's amazing. Like I said. You were totally trashed, you won't remember...”

“Oh, I remember,” says George.

“Look, I'm man enough to admit it, okay? I'm a better cop because of her. She really changed me.”

“She did?”

“She tricked me into a firearms course, right; she told me it was crazy golf but it was a sodding firing range. I only figured it out when she started shooting at me. I passed, though. Got a B.”

George tries to remember the last time she got a B. It might have been on a blood test.

“I used to clock off at one, no exceptions. Now it's three-thirty. On very rare occasions,” he says, off George's look. “And I even went to the office—the other office—for the first time since 1992...”

“Actually, I think that one was me,” George says.

“Oh yeah,” says Jack. He sighs, as melodramatic as Naz at his crime-scene-theatre finest. “Don't end up hating me, Georgina. Get out while you still can.”

“I would if I had a key,” George says. “Or a bomb to blow a hole in the door.”

She freezes. (Not like an ice pop. She has body fat on her side.)

“A bomb. Jack, that's it! We need to make a bomb!”

“Yeah, but I'd have to google how to first,” Jack says. “And then I'd end up on a watch list and you'd have to arrest me.”

He thinks she's joking. It's a rookie error, which George is going to put down to the head wound.

She scrambles up. She scans the contents of the unit, removes a selection of bottles and a roll of masking tape. Digs through the shopping bags for the rest. Pulls apart the fringing on her scarf and yanks it off with her teeth. Compares it with a strand from the mop. When she turns to check Jack's still awake, since he's being unusually slow to offer an opinion, she finds his jaw hanging slack, a healthy mix of fear and awe in his eyes.

“You're making a bomb,” he says.

“I'm making a bomb,” she agrees.

“How?”

“You'll have to google it and risk ending up on a watch list.”

“I'm not going to try it out at home...”

“Please. You are totally going to try it out at home.”

Jack rises from his icy tomb. He holds up his torch for extra light as George finishes off; both leans in and flinches back as she turns, cradling her creation as gingerly as any other newborn.

“All we need now...is a spark.”

“We have plenty of spark.” Jack grins. George feels herself grinning back. “We have _Naz's matches_.”

George thrusts the device at Jack and goes rooting back through the bags. She retrieves the matches. They're extra-long, by special request; Naz must have a ton of scented candles. Jack snaffles the box with his free hand.

“I'll do it,” he says.

George shouldn't argue with him while he's got a shopmade bomb in his hand. But still.

“ _I_ should be the one to do it.”

“Christ. Will you ever stop trying so hard?”

“Will you ever stop _not_ trying so hard?”

“I'm trying!” Jack protests, truthfully. “I try!”

“You don't have to,” George snaps.

And there it is. He makes it look effortless; lounges his way through life while everyone else works their socks off. He ignores the rules, makes up his own, and still everything falls plum in his lap: criminals, women, the best seats at Tony's. _Jack is a slacker...and it's enough_. Of all the items on her list, it's the one that annoys her most. It was always number one, right from the start.

It's also the one she thinks, in an imminent-freezing-to-death kind of way, she might almost envy.

“Look,” Jack begins. “You built a bomb from scratch in five and a half minutes...”

“It was four and a half, actually.”

He looks even more impressed than he did about the toilet roll. “So we've established you're a badass, okay? No need to hog the glory. Sit down. Put your feet up. Finish off Naz's wine gums while I light up this sucker and rescue us. I saved you all the black ones.”

Praise is the catnip of every over-achiever. George is not immune. Jack is cleverer than he acts, ninety-five percent of the time. She takes the olive leaf. Jack takes the bomb, and makes it back safely. They run and take cover, listening to the hissing of the flame, waiting. And sucking. And waiting.

“It's not going to go off,” George says, eventually. “I couldn't measure the ratios properly. I had to guess... I guess I got it wrong.” She swallows the last wine gum. It sticks on the lump in her throat. “It was a stupid idea. I should have known it was going to blow up in our faces—”

With a deafening boom and a rolling wall of heat, it does. Debris rattles. Smoke billows. They crawl, coughing, from their hiding place, and poke their heads around the crumbling remains of the wall.

“You were only supposed to blow a hole in the bloody thing,” Jack says.

 

 

They emerge from the swing doors to find more lights waiting for them; distant stars, orbiting the car park. They approach with caution, leaning on each other. Jack looks like he's been mugged by a chimney sweep. George's ears are thudding like thunderclaps. The end of her ponytail feels crispy, as if it's been dipped in a £39.99 deep fat fryer.

She pushes the emergency release. The revolving doors fold open. There's an awning over the entrance to the store, rows of trolleys lined up, waiting patiently, to their left. A police car is parked on the right, against the bushes that border the car park, casting spotlights. They step out, into still dawn air, as a uniformed copper steps forward.

“All right, Si?” Jack says.

“Jackie me old mucker!” he says. They punch each other's arms, the way George's cousins do to her, instead of saying _hello_. “Still on for poker Thursday? Fancy running into you out here...”

“What are you doing here, constable?” George asks. Or shouts. The ringing in her ears makes it hard to tell.

“We got a call about some suspicious lights. There's been a spot of concern from passers-by.” He indicates a woman, standing back from the car. “This is all above board, right?.. Not breaking and entering, are you?”

“You know me, mate.” Jack smiles. “Wouldn't pick my nose unless the Chief Constable himself ponied up a finger.”

“Say no more. Sorry to bother you, guys. I'll leave you to it.” Si turns, gestures to the woman. “False alarm, Ms Devine. I'm sure the loud banging noise you heard was nothing untoward. The lady and the gentleman here are police officers currently engaged in a confidential, fully authorised...”

“Devine?” George says, sure she's still hearing things. She gives the woman a once-over. Mid-thirties, Amazonian in height, tumbling dark hair like a gothic Rapunzel. She takes a punt. “ _Gabriel_ Devine? Who used to be nightwatchman here?”

The woman steps forward. Jack's mouth drops open. She's not only gorgeous, she looks like she could crush his windpipe with her little finger.

“It's pronounced _Gabrielle_. Like the singer with the eye patch, not the one who did _Sledgehammer_.”

“Of course it is,” George says.

“I was unfairly dismissed. My union's looking at legal action. In the meantime...” She shrugs. “It's stupid, but I still feel responsible. I've worked doors since I was eighteen, so now I'm an insomniac. It's go for a walk or beat my punch bag until I collapse from exhaustion.”

“You wouldn't happen to be related to my ex, would you?” Jack says. “Tall? Blonde? Extremely feminine?”

The bushes rustle as Gabriel stares at him, looking lost.

“Okay, so your mum was drunk when she registered your birth? Tiny bit psychic?”

“She's dyslexic.” Gabriel glares at Jack. “No one ever believes a woman could work security. I've broken more fingers than you've had hot dinners.”

“Yeah, and you also knocked me and my partner out cold and locked us up in a cupboard, which we had to blast our way out of. Then bullshitted my colleague here into believing you were _passing by_. Oi Si!” Jack hollers. “Pass us your cuffs. This chick's getting nicked.”

Gabriel starts protesting as Si recites her rights. George wiggles a finger in each of her ears. Jack stares up at a canvas banner that's been attached to the awning at some point since they last used the front door. _Sting!_ it says. _The fresh new loyalty card with extra venom!_

All of them recoil as another pair of bright lights swerve into view. A flashy Mercedes pulls up. A polished pair of shoes step out of it, crunching on the tarmac.

“Oh God,” Xavier says. “Not you two again.”

“Hello Xavier,” Gabriel says, pronouncing it the wrong way.

“Hello Gabriel,” he says, returning the favour.

“You must be the manager,” Si says, as Jack sneaks a glance at the Merc. It's both newer and shinier than his beloved, fried-out wreck.

“You must be the policeman who called me at half past four in the morning to tell me someone's broken into my shop,” Xavier says. “Which is why I raced down here in my pyjamas, to discover my three favourite people in the world, having a chinwag.”

George and Jack glance down. There are stripy pyjama bottoms flapping above his shoes. It makes him look like an escaped convict.

“It's not a break-in if you leave a window open,” Jack says.

“Pretty sure it is,” says Si.

Jack looks at him in pity. “Pipe down, Xavvy,” he says. “At least you got some sleep. We've sacrificed eight hours of quality shut-eye to establish that Gabby here has been targeting you personally with her rusty Bangladeshi razor blades. Case closed. And no one had to die. No one got hurt at all: well, except for me and my partner here.”

“And the cleaning cupboard,” George says.

“And the cleaning cupboard, which, let's face it, was a shithole anyway. So why don't you stop calling each other names, agree you're never going to get on, and put it all behind you? I promise it'll go down really well with the judge. Especially if you write Miss Devine another letter, admitting that you framed her, and granting her your full and frank forgiveness...”

“I wouldn't frame this woman in a photograph,” Xavier snaps. “And I've never written her a letter in my life.”

“Gavin Forsyth, then,” George says. He shakes his head.

“Gaby Roslin?” Jack suggests.

“Must be that mad cow Gail,” Gabriel says, spotting the pattern. “Are you finally sacking her, Jessop? He's sacked everyone else who was employed the same year as her. And yet she clings on. Like a pigtailed cockroach.”

“That might have something to do with the fact they're having an affair,” George says, as Jack is nodding along with Gabriel. His head stills abruptly.

“I'm right, aren't I, Xavier? I saw the sugar on your lips, earlier. And that was sugar on her lips, too: not £5.99 Rimmel Sheer and Shine, or extremely glittery chapstick. Gail reads books on her break telling her that sugar is poison. She'd never eat it willingly. So it must be transferred from you, off the doughnuts you eat once a day, five times a week. Or maybe more, judging from the number of paper bags in your bin.”

“You can't prove that,” Xavier says peevishly. “Our paper bags are identical. We use them for all our fresh baked produce. There's no way to tell what was inside them, as long as you shake off the crumbs...”

“Let me get this straight,” Jack says. “You're copping to a fling with a member of your staff, but denying that you shovel doughnuts down your cakehole faster than Homer Simpson?”

Xavier scowls. George fixes him with her steely gaze. He wilts like his Peace Lily.

“Okay, fine. Yes. Gail and I have been having...relations.”

“So how long has this been going on?” George asks.

“It started at the Christmas party. They made me hand out P45s instead of presents! They even sent special crackers! I was miserable. Gail was there for me. At first I thought she was trying to take advantage of me. Blackmail me so she didn't lose her job...”

Gabriel snickers.

“...but then we fell in love.” He turns desperate eyes on Gabriel. “Please. You can't tell anyone. If Gary finds out...”

“Who the hell's Gary?” Jack says.

“My boyfriend. He's a vegan health coach. And an amateur wrestler.”

“The one holding your cat,” George says, with a warning glance at Jack. He widens his eyes, the picture of innocence.

“Empress Kittykins is like our child. I can't bear the thought of losing custody, if we separate. Which I would. Gary could give her a much better home than me. He pays for my webhosting. And my car. And half my mortgage...”

“So the letter was to Gary?”

“You called your cat _Empress_ _Kitty_ _kins_?” says Jack.

“You keep talking about this letter,” Xavier says. His face is taking on a violet hue. “I haven't written anyone a letter since I was eight and my Swedish penpal Sven got run over by a tractor!”

“'DEAR GA',” George prompts. “In your bin.”

“Oh,” he says. “ _Oh_. That. That was for my crossword puzzle, in yesterday's paper.” He thinks about it. “Ten across. Six letters. 'Red hot oven marred by mark on top'.”

“Grade A,” George says, after a moment's thought.

“Grade A,” says Jack, at the exact same time.

She stares at him. He shrugs.

“'Marred' is the word that shows it's an anagram, right? 'Red' is the first part, 'hot oven' is an AGA, because it's fashionable, which is the same thing as hot, and when you jumble them about…” He meets George's eyes. “Ha. Amateur. You went for the straight clue, didn't you?”

“Straight _is_ usually the safest bet,” Xavier says, chipping in.

Jack opens his mouth. Feels George's boot on his toe. Thinks better of it.

“The boys should start calling you Inspector Morse, hey Jackie?” says Si. “Make a change from Inspector Armweak.”

George snorts. Jack's ears go pink.

“So I've googled crossword puzzles and invented a poncy first name to pick up intellectual women. I bet you've listened to opera on the sly in your squad car. Imagined yourself cruising Oxford in a car you couldn't possibly afford, nicking academics, explaining red herrings to your much thicker sidekick...”

“And here I was,” George says, “thinking you were my partner.”

“I said _imagined_ ,” he protests. He pauses. Rewinds. “Are you calling me...your sidekick?”

Xavier has given up on the crossword tip exchange. He's back bickering with Gabriel, over each other, and not fictional TV detectives. He's warmed to the idea of her being guilty. George can tell this because he keeps shouting it, while jabbing a finger at her. Gabriel is still protesting her innocence, accusing him again of stealing her keys.

“If I wanted to kill you, you bell-end,” she yells, “I would have smeared Vaseline on the stairs! Or _stabbed_ you with the sodding razor blade!”

She sounds genuine enough, and George is struck by doubt. So Xavier didn't, after all, write anyone a letter. But he was still the target, she remains convinced of that. And if Gabriel didn't plant the razor blades, or assault George and Jack... And if Xavier is so determined to keep his lunch habits a secret, along with his affair...

Who had the means and the opportunity to steal Gabriel's keys? Who enjoys playing with words and suggestion; would go to elaborate lengths to hurt someone? Who is in the ideal position to observe everything that goes on in the shop, and the things about Xavier that he tries to hide?

The bushes are rustling again. There's not a flicker of wind in the air.

(Not even from Jack.)

George turns around. “You can come out now,” she says. “Clive.”

 

 

A stick figure unfolds from the greenery, like the workman silhouette on a road sign. A shock of red hair emerges, glinting in the headlights.

“I'm on the early shift today,” Clive says, looking sheepish. He hurries past them, over to the trolleys, heading for the door. “Didn't want to be late. I heard you guys talking as I came up the path. I know I shouldn't be listening, but...”

“But that's what you do,” George says. “You should have stayed in the shop, out of sight, but you couldn't help yourself. You listen in, while you're mopping the floor in the background. And no one notices.”

Clive studies her, with those intense eyes. “Except you, apparently.”

“I was looking,” George says. “The same way you were when Xavier was scurrying down to the shop floor every day, fetching his lunch. He's secretive about his eating habits. Doesn't want his blog exposed for the fantasy it is. We never noticed anything unusual on the CCTV. He probably tells everyone he's doing quality checks, or stock control. You were the only one to see the truth. You see a lot of things, don't you, Clive? The man that _no one_ sees, unless they're stepping over him.”

“Like Gail Plait,” Jack says, taking up the baton. “I mean, Andrews.” He whistles in appreciation. “It's the Heidi look, yeah? The corruptible German milkmaid thing. Fetch her a cardigan and she could have a second career impersonating Britney Spears. The fit version.”

“Gail is beautiful,” Clive says cautiously, as if he senses a trap.

“But scary. Christ, is she scary.”

Clive looks confused. “I don't know about that,” he says.

“Because I bet she never looks at you twice, let alone speaks to you. Unless she's tripping over your rod. Or standing in your wet patch.”

“Metaphorically speaking,” George says.

“Metaphorically speaking,” Jack agrees. “I mean, it's not like you'd ever get her back to your bedsit. You've got nothing she wants. You're a poxy cleaner.”

“I'm a psychology graduate actually,” Clive says, bristling. “We're not all obsessed with status.” He side-eyes Xavier. “All the expensive clothes and cars in the world don't make you a nice person. You can be satisfied with earning some honest money, mopping floors. You don't need a career to be fulfilled.”

“Can't argue with that,” Jack says, activating Good Cop mode. He turns to George. “Clive here says there's more to life than your job. And he's right, you know. You're working yourself into a sad, single grave. I guarantee St. Peter won't give a toss about your colour-coded spreadsheet of the cases we've worked.”

He gives Clive a conspiratorial nod. George tries to work out how he knows about the spreadsheet. It's locked in a drawer, with a special set of Sharpies. Shit. She must have let it slip when she was drunk.

“What colour do you use for the cases _I_ solve?” Jack whispers.

“Black,” George hisses.

“Like her soul,” he says to Clive. He peers at him. “That's a nasty shaving rash you've got there. The Nivea for Men skincare range is on special offer this week...”

“Been buying any 1p razor blades with free shipping lately?” George asks.

Clive looks between them, trapped in the pincer movement, like a rabbit in twin-beam spotlights.

“Supermarkets are notorious for the tricks they use, to play with people's minds,” George says. “Right down to putting an expensive product in your eyeline, and a cheaper one out of view, on the bottom shelf. Xavier's used to those tricks, which is why he didn't fall for yours. You're not half as clever as you think you are.

“You did manage to put the whammy on me, though. I really fancied a Vegemite sandwich once you were through with me—I had to resort to Marmite. I'm going to have the lyrics to _Down Under_ stuck in my head for days. Cheers for that.”

Clive lets his mask slip. He smirks.

“But you made one, fatal mistake. Two, actually. When you knocked over Xavier's bin, you told me the green leaf was lettuce. It wasn't: it was from a fern, which looks nothing like the iceberg lettuce they use in prepacked sandwiches. Chicory or frisée, at a push. But never an iceberg, and still I didn't question it, because you were so convincing. You weren't even trying to whammy me, that time. You whammied yourself. You saw the first thing that came to mind, and it wasn't a fern. It was the remains of a sandwich that you already _knew_ was in the bin.”

“I empty it every fortnight,” Clive says. “Of course I know what's in it.”

“And you also knew that the doughnut in the bag had been a ring doughnut. But as Xavier told us, the bags at the fresh produce counter are all identical. You sell all kinds of bread besides the fresh baked baguette. Not to mention the six types of doughnut that aren't the humble ring. So how could you be so specific—so _certain_ —about the contents of the bag? Unless you already knew what Xavier had been eating. Unless you'd been studying his eating habits closely. And then, when you were ready, turning up early in the morning, ready to strike.”

“So you're the tosser who stole my keys,” Gabriel says. She turns to Jack. “Aren't you going to search him?”

“Yeah, all right,” Jack says. He nods at Si. “Strip him.”

“Seriously?” Clive says.

“Then hang him upside down and give him a shake.”

“Okay, okay!” Clive screeches, rooting in his pockets.

“I'm kidding! I'm kidding! Your freckly arse is the last thing I want to look at this time in the morning...” Clive dangles a key ring from his index finger. It has a big silver G on it. Jack arches an eyebrow at George. “Christ. That _never_ works. Well, except on kissograms.”

“Which you loved.”

“I swear on the Chief Constable's poster, I closed my eyes the _second_ she twanged her bra strap.”

“I can't believe this,” Xavier says. He steps over to Clive, faces him down. “How could you be so reckless? Hate me all you like: I deserve it. I'm a terrible person. I've played God with people's lives. Taken away their jobs so I can keep my own. Lied, and cheated, and thoroughly enjoyed Pot Noodles... But to knowingly put innocent customers in danger... What have they ever done to deserve it?”

“I don't think him and Gail are going to last very long,” George murmurs.

“Customers are vermin,” Clive spits. “Swarming all over my lovely clean floor, dropping litter, spreading filth. They're disgusting. Like you.”

There's nowhere for him to go. He's backed up against the trolleys. Si is blocking him one way, brandishing handcuffs. George and Gabriel—and Jack—have his other exit points covered, ready to rugby tackle him, wherever he runs. Clive takes it in. His chin sets in decision. Quick as a flash, he grabs something else from his pocket, seizes Xavier, and holds it up against his throat.

It's a razor blade. The same as all the rest. Still capable of carnage, however rusty it might be.

“I do normally clean them first,” he says, looking apologetic.

“Clive, you need to calm down,” George says. She raises her hands. Inches that little bit closer. “We can talk about this. There's always a solution. No one needs to get hurt.”

“Jessop does,” Clive says. “He said so himself. He deserves it.”

“So let's talk about why he deserves it.”

She steps back, hitting her head on the banner. It's heavy, hung too low, and already starting to sag. It's roped to pillars supporting the awning, secured at chest height on each end. With that observation, a plan begins to form. She swivels her eyes back and forth to the banner. Nods at Jack, letting him know that he needs to do it, while she's stalling for time. But their well-oiled machine has gone as rusty as Clive's razors. Jack follows her eyes, baffled. He probably thinks the blast has left her cross-eyed.

George nods at Gabriel instead. She nods back.

“There used to be two people on my shift. Me, and Marnie. Jessop was told to cut one of us—I overheard him, on the phone. He used that word: _cut_. He had no idea I was there. I thought I was toast. Marnie went on _Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners_ on Channel 4. She used to buy twelve bottles of bleach a week with her discount...”

“He picked Marnie? Why?”

“He _tossed a coin_. I was heads. She was tails.” A thin red line trickles down Xavier's throat, as Clive presses harder. “She's got a six-year-old daughter, you thoughtless bastard!”

Out of the corner of her eye, George can see Gabriel, sidling closer to Jack. Eye movements and nods achieve nothing, so she grabs his hand like she needs something to hold. Jack starts in disbelief. Gabriel stealthily slides his fingers against the rope that's securing their side of the banner. The ropes look loose, like they'll be easy to untie. It's a health and safety hazard: an accident waiting to happen.

Jack gets the message. He sets to work on the ropes, giving Gabriel a lascivious wink as their hands rub together. George rolls her eyes. Clive spots it.

“So you get it?” he says. “You understand?”

“I do,” George says. “And I think it's very noble of you, going in to bat for your colleagues. But there were legal ways of doing it. Your company has a human resources department. There are unions you could take your grievances to. Newspapers, even.”

“Yeah,” Jack says, brow furrowing. He must be working on a particularly tricky knot. “Come on, man. You've got to admit, it's a bit over the top. I was rooting for you, too. Mopping that floor, taking on the Man...”

“Why didn't you just push him down the stairs?” Si asks, yawning. His eyelids are drooping.

“I wanted to make him suffer.” Clive moves the blade back and forth, carving out an invisible X. Xavier's eyes bulge in terror. “I wanted him to know what it feels like. To be _cut_. To swallow a sharp, bitter pill, that someone with more power than you has forced down your throat.”

“You mean you _don't_ fancy Gail?” Jack says. He sighs. “I bet I know where you went to uni.”

“Of course I fancy her,” Clive says. “I was going to ask her out at the Christmas party. But then she plied the boss with Jägermeisters...and the rest is history. I'd still have gone there. Until she went and graffitied it all over the toilets, in permanent marker. Disgusting habit. You really think I could be with a filthy trollop like that?”

“How dare you,” yells Xavier. He starts to struggle. Clive battles to restrain him.

George realises the potential for bloodshed. She glances at Si, but he's got his eyes shut. Then at Jack and Gabriel, but Jack shakes his head, holds up a finger. She needs a better distraction. She remembers other snatches of her drunken night celebrating that first, victorious case. Naz, challenging her to an equation-balancing contest. Tony, hydrating her with shots of soda water. Jack saying _amazing_ , _Amazing_ , _AMAZING_ , over and over in her brain, until she woke up the next day, convinced this was it: the one time in her life she wouldn't measure up.

Before it all, though, there was karaoke.

“ _Do you come from a land down under_ ,” George sing-shouts. Clive and Xavier stop fighting, heads swinging around. Si springs up as if someone's shot him. There's a frantic flapping sound as birds scatter nearby.

(George has perfect pitch. She's sure it's a coincidence.)

She glares at Jack, who's also stopped what he's doing. “ _Where women glow and men plunder..._ ”

“Got it!” Jack cries, releasing the last knot. He and Gabriel duck. So does George. She lifts her eyes, to see the banner still hanging there.

“Oh not again,” Jack complains. He stands to check it. The movement seems to finally dislodge the banner; it unravels from the end, gathering pace as it sweeps a hair's breadth past him, a giant gymnast's ribbon, curling into a clunking fist.

Xavier and Si combine to shove Clive into its path. The fist reaches him, before he has time to react. It smacks him back against the trolleys. He crumples to the floor, razor blades spilling like confetti from his pockets. The other end of the banner gives way to gravity. It collapses neatly on top of him, resembling a giant bow on a Christmas gift. His feet are the only thing visible, like the wicked witch from Oz, trapped beneath a house.

George and Jack step closer. They cock their heads, looking down. The wording looks different, stretched across the folds in the banner. It reads more like _Stung!_

“Can't you hear, can't you hear the thunder?” Jack says.

“Oh shut up,” says George.

 

 

“Lime linguine with prawn and avocado,” Tony announces, placing two plates before George and Jack. He peppers them with a flourish. “And my secret recipe chilli dressing.”

Jack leans forward and sniffs appreciatively. “You've outdone yourself, mate. This looks _amazing_.”

George's forkful pauses, halfway to her mouth.

“You two must be famished,” Tony says, returning to his side of the bar. “Slept all morning. No breakfast...”

“And we still have to finish our case report,” George says. She knows, even as it emerges from her mouth, that there'll be no _we_ about it. She'll end up doing it. As usual.

“You forgot I was here too, didn't you?” Naz's voice says. They turn their heads to the inside end of the bar. It's obscured by a mountain of carrier bags, peppered with dust and flecks of breeze block. Naz peeks his head around the side. “I'm flipping starving. These two ate all my wine gums!”

“We remembered your matches,” George says, looking at Jack for support. He backs her up with a nod.

“Next time I pass a corner shop,” he offers, as Tony disappears to the kitchen, “I'll shout you a bag of Jelly Babies.”

“Funny thing is,” Naz says, pulling out a twelve-pack of Aloe Vera Triple Cushioned Softies—and another, in shea butter, and a third, this time peach—“I genuinely don't remember putting loo roll on my list.”

“Track day here I come,” Jack says to George.

“Think of it as Christmas morning, mate,” Tony says, returning with another plate. “Free week's shopping, _and_ you get to be first to test today's special. _Jalapeñ_ _o_ _Jack-frezi_. Mexican curry.”

Naz fights his way out from the toilet roll. He frowns as Tony places it in front of him.

“Because I'm Asian, I get to test the curry?”

“Um,” says Tony.

Naz brightens. “Only messing. Pass us a spoon.”

He digs in, nodding his head, making sounds like _mmmm_ and _ahhhh_ and _hot-ho_ _t_ _t-hottt_ _t_.

“Woah, woah,” Tony says. “Leave _some_ for the Chief Constable, will you?”

“Wait up. I thought this was for me?”

“Poison tasting is a fine and grand tradition,” George says. She passes Naz a spare fork. He shrugs and starts attacking her linguine.

“Speaking of Christmas,” Tony says, “I've got a present for you guys.”

“Is it dessert?” Jack says, looking hopeful.

Tony ducks behind the bar and pops up with a wine bag. “Gaz and Dave stopped by earlier. Left you this, to say thanks for covering for them.”

The bag is fluorescent green and stamped with 'Plonker'. George slides out an equally green bottle of Chardonnay.

“Is that all they got?” Jack asks.

“Nah,” says Tony. “There's thirty more in the back.”

George considers asking how they got it past Customs. She slides the bottle back, deciding it's probably better not to know. Jack looks at her askance as she puts the bag on the floor by her stool, next to her leather one.

“You're not going to share that?”

“I won our bet, didn't I? I said from the start it was the guy mopping the floor in the background.”

“Yeah, but you were joking...”

George rests her chin on a hand and stares him out. Jack blinks first. He curls his lip and then gives up. George exchanges a fist bump with Naz.

“You can have my other present,” Tony says. He holds out his own fist. Jack looks suspicious, but offers up his palm. Tony drops a yellow-white sliver into it.

“The chip from my tooth,” Jack says mournfully.

“You left it on my bar. Which is a filthy habit, by the way. Imagine if that had got into the linguine...”

Naz stops chewing. He picks through the prawns, cheeks bulging, checking for foreign objects.

“Hey Naz,” Tony says, “what's this I heard about you, doing a roaring trade at the station?”

Naz has two options if he wants to speak: spit out the food or swallow it. He screws up his eyes and with a theatrical gulp, forces it down. He gestures for a drink. Tony slides over Jack's glass of Sauvignon blanc. Jack slides it right back. Naz settles for George's instead.

“Yeah, yeah. It's going great. _Way_ better than I thought.”

“Are you selling your body, then?” Jack says.

Naz reaches under his jacket and pulls out a zip-top sandwich bag. It's bulging with razor blades: very familiar looking razor blades.

“Well, it's not like Clive's going to need them,” he says.

“How many have you got left?” Tony asks. “We could do a deal. I want 20% commission, up front. Twice that if I sell them all within the first half hour.”

“Which you will,” Naz says, “because you know someone who knows someone who knows someone else. And that someone else will know someone who knows someone who knows someone else. Who you also know.”

“I'll take that as a yes then,” Tony says.

Naz tips the bag out on the bar. Razor blades bounce and spread. George makes a mental note, as he starts to count them: tell her dad not to be such a cheapskate. And strongly suggest he changes his username. Now she knows what it is, _of course_ she's going to look.

Jack polishes off the last of the linguine. He lifts the plate as if to lick it, then remembers where he is. He sits back with a sigh, stretching his arms in satisfaction, looking like the cat who got the creamy pasta.

“Feels so good to be back,” he says, swirling his wine around his glass. He whistles a jaunty tune. It sounds suspiciously like the opening bars of _Down Under_. “Drinking good wine, eating good food, waiting for the phone to ring to tell us someone's been brutally murdered...”

George looks around, at the now-familiar walls and faces. There are worse places to be than ensconced in a toasty bar, she'll grant him that. It's not only the office, it's starting to feel like home: the warm blue heart of the thin blue line. Part of her doesn't want to leave, to return to the cold, sterile walls of the station, to write their cold, sterile report. The Chief Constable's office is painted white, like a bleached bone. He has horizontal blinds, furred with dust, and bars on his windows.

He's also got an index-linked pension. And an MBE, for services to policing. She straightens her spine. Loosening up leads only to poor posture, and an unremarkable career.

“Come on,” Jack says, still waiting for a reaction. “We've been slumming it for weeks. Missing Persons, holiday cover in Vice, and sodding supermarkets... We've more than done our penance.”

“You mean we've done yours.”

“We nicked Clive the cleaner. Said sorry for causing severe structural damage. Propped up the local economy for a month on our expense account. The Chief Constable's got to forgive us, now. What else can we possibly do to offend him?”

George notes his improper use of the word _we_. It would be high up on her list, if she still had the heart to make it. It's easy to complain about Jack to the inside of her head, but it's turning her brain into a pressure cooker. She needs a better escape valve; someone to vent to, who can understand her very valid frustrations.

Someone who isn't the police shrink.

“Sixty-three,” Naz announces. He frowns. “Hang on, I think I counted one twice...”

Jack's phone beeps. He checks the screen, scowls, and shoves it back in his pocket.

“Kate again?” George guesses.

“Bloody PPI.”

George nurses her glass. “So what are you going to do? About Kate?”

“Sod her,” Jack says. He knocks back his wine, bullish as ever now he's safe in a centrally heated coffee bar. “I made an honest mistake, okay? If I let myself be crippled with guilt every time I made an honest mistake, I'd be hobbling round like Tiny Tim. The place wasn't even up for rent in the first place! It's not like anything I said was going to make a difference. She'll have to squat there the next time they go on holiday. Move into the treehouse instead...”

“So she was being slightly unreasonable. Be the bigger man. Apologise.”

“Pfft,” Jack says.

“I think you should reconsider,” says George. She takes a sip of wine. “Kate was—is—important to you. You wouldn't have been acting so mental, otherwise.”

“It had nothing to do with Kate,” Jack says. “Wandering around that supermarket threw me for a spin, okay? It's where I met my ex.”

“The pilates instructor? Or Daniel? I mean, Danielle?”

“Her name was Lauren. Total fox: cost me a fortune in coffee. But the sex was fantastic. I really thought we had something, you know? Then it ended...badly.” He anticipates George's next question. “And no, I'm not telling you what happened. You'll get that judgy look on your face. The one where your eyebrow does that _th_ _ing_ , like you've had Botox. Have you had Botox? Because your face is really tight. It almost never moves.”

“Another humdinger. Back to Lauren.”

“Long story short: she hates me now, too.”

“Still,” George says. Naz and Tony are recounting the razor blades, for the third time. “I'd hate to think you'd leave things like that between us.”

“I wouldn't,” Jack says, the wine leaving his voice strangely softened.

George holds his gaze. The moment stretches. Jack is a pickpocket's dream. He has no idea she's lifted the phone from his pocket, easy as a hamster, while his attention is elsewhere.

Tony has left Naz to it while he summons one of his wait staff over. He places the curry plate on a tray, tops with another plate to insulate, and adds a napkin-wrapped knife and fork.

“Fast as you can to the station, babe,” he says. “Chief Constable's waiting.”

Jack is patting his pockets like he's lost something. “Where did I put that tooth..?” he says.

Tony's head jerks around. Jack holds up the chip. Tony lets out a sigh of relief. He chuckles as he picks up his carving knife, on his way back to the kitchen.

“For a moment there,” he says, “I thought it had ended up in my curry.”

Jack guffaws. The waitress disappears out the door. Her name is Carla; George has chatted with her before. In her spare time she does triathlon.

“Sixty-two,” Naz says. He grins uncertainly. “It's funny, you know. Could have sworn I had sixty-three back at the station.”

“You had sixty-three a minute ago,” George says. “Speed-counting. I did a course. It's a thing.”

“MY CURRY!” Tony bellows.

“THE CHIEF CONSTABLE!” roars Jack.

He scrambles out of his stool, only to find his feet tangled in the straps of George's handbag. Tony wades through the carrier bags, a man on a mission. He emerges, knife in hand, like he's been hacking a path through the jungle. Jack kicks away George's bag and speeds off with the face of a man about to be booted down to Traffic. Tony remembers he's still got the knife, and drops it safely behind the bar. He passes Jack without breaking a sweat, before they've even reached the doorway.

Naz looks at George. She shrugs.

“Think I'll sit this one out. Keep the bar warm.”

Naz smiles. George smiles back. He scurries off in pursuit of Tony and Jack. Voices carry through the open door. It sounds a bit like: “POLICE! SOMEBODY STOP THAT WAITRESS!”

George takes out Jack's phone. She got an unexpected bonus, too: his wallet. She opens it up, looking at his cards. The Honeybee scandal hasn't deterred Jack from using loyalty cards: he's even got a Boots one. She slides out his old Honeybee card, and its replacement. One is blue and yellow. The other is red and black. One offers twice as many points per pound. The other has a wider variety of rewards to choose from, honey to sweeten the sting.

It's like comparing the sun against the moon, when both have their place in the sky, and their own time to shine.

She closes the wallet, cracks Jack's password and scrolls through the phone. Her finger hovers over the name that's haunted her for weeks. Kate is amazing; not least because Jack is still walking around, unscathed. But George is equally awesome. She is, in Jack's own words, a badass.

The knowledge restores her confidence. She presses dial and lifts the phone to her ear, wondering if Kate will answer, when she sees Jack's name on the screen. Or MASSIVE TWAT, or whatever else she's got him saved under.

(She's doing this for Jack. Except she's really not.)

(She's got to find something else to channel her energies into. The kind of competition she can actually _win_...)

The line connects at last. A voice says a wary, “Hello?” And then there's nothing. George remembers that it's her turn to speak.

“Wait, wait, don't hang up. It's not Jack—I stole his phone. Well, borrowed. I'll give it back. Girl guide's honour.” There's still silence on the other end. She takes a deep breath. “My name is Georgina Dixon. I'm Jack's new partner.”

“Oh God, I am _so_ sorry.”

“It's fine, I'm getting used to him. But I thought it would be good for the two of us to have a chat. Woman to woman. About Jack.”

“He is _such_ a dick,” Kate says.

George has a feeling they're going to get along famously.

 

**Author's Note:**

> George's earworm: [Men at Work - Down Under](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfR9iY5y94s)


End file.
